“Save the Earth”? Contemplating a globe without homo sapiens

“Save the Earth” always seemed like a strange expression — the planet will be here even when humans are but a memory. And to be fair, it’s been a long time since enviros used that kinda language. Nowadays you hear that more as a dismissive characterization of the environmental ethic.

Hanford Nuclear Reservation — what would happen there if we quit tending it?

Now a new book asks: What would happen to the Earth if homo sapiens up and disappeared? Think of the scenario as the Talking Heads’ (Nothing But) Flowerssquared.

Journalist Alan Weisman was on KUOW’s Weekday this morning flogging his new book “The World Without Us.” It’s billed as a “thought experiment,” although Weisman spoke of interviewing numerous scientists to prepare it.

There’s a website devoted to the book that’s worth checking out. See the animation on what would happen to your house and town after 500 years of no upkeep.

Weisman’s scariest lines in the radio show came when he started talking about what would happen rather quickly to untended nuclear power plants. (And if you’ve been following the push to have nukes save us from global warming, you may want to take a quick look at today’s New York Times’ piece on the aftermath of the Japanese earthquake this week. If you have the subscription, the Wall Street Journal’s take on it is also worthwhile.)

Weisman also wonders: why in the heck are we still burning stuff to heat our water, when solar water heaters could be used with no greenhouse-gas or Peak Oil concerns? Near the end of the Weekday show, he summed up his message this way: